Organic Payment Gateways Opens Door to Telemedicine Payments

Organic Payment Gateways (OPG), a company that helps CBD, supplement and wellness businesses process online payments, is expanding into the world of telemedicine.

As the Maine company said in a Tuesday (Aug. 16) news release, OPG will now include telemedicine payment processing services among its offerings, and has debuted a section on its website that provides advice and information for telemedicine providers.

Alex Roy, president of OPG parent company E-Commerce 4 LLC, said the expansion comes at a crucial time in the telemedicine world.

“The convenience of telemedicine has been a big help for patients, especially over the last couple of years when minimizing in-person interactions has been important,” Roy said. “But, both traditional and alternative health care providers who want to add telemedicine services are often unable to use popular online payment processors because their business type is considered ‘high-risk.’”

OPG said its payment processing service also integrates with most customer relationship management (CRM) software, shopping carts and website builders. Roy said specialized processing is set up specifically for a business’s telemedicine services.

“We usually integrate a high-risk-friendly payment gateway like AuthorizeNet or NMI with a business’s shopping cart,” he said. “But, the important thing is that the merchant account on the back end has to be set up correctly for the exact telemedicine services offered. That’s the piece that truly makes the payment processing telemedicine friendly.”

Telemedicine use has risen since the COVID pandemic, recent research by PYMNTS found. In May, 26% of American patients sought both telemedicine and remote counseling services, compared to 21% in November 2021.

Read more: More Americans Turn to Telemedicine, Remote Counseling

Meanwhile, the share of patients not using remote healthcare services of any kind has simultaneously fallen, dropping from 66% in November 2021 to 62% in May 2022.